5 ideas
| 16007 | I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: I always reason from existence, not towards existence. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.40) | |
| A reaction: Kierkegaard's important premise to help show that theistic proofs for God's existence don't actually prove existence, but develop the content of a conception. [SY] |
| 16013 | Nothing necessary can come into existence, since it already 'is' [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Can the necessary come into existence? That is a change, and everything that comes into existence demonstrates that it is not necessary. The necessary already 'is'. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.74) | |
| A reaction: [SY] |
| 3016 | Even the gods cannot strive against necessity [Pittacus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Even the gods cannot strive against necessity. | |
| From: report of Pittacus (reports [c.610 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.5.4 |
| 541 | Virtue comes more from habit than character [Critias] |
| Full Idea: More men are good through habit than through character. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B09), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.29.41 |
| 542 | Fear of the gods was invented to discourage secret sin [Critias] |
| Full Idea: When the laws forbade men to commit open crimes of violence, and they began to do them in secret, a wise and clever man invented fear of the gods for mortals, to frighten the wicked, even if they sin in secret. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B25), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 9.54 |